Xbox Series X
Microsoft’s new console makes games more accessible than ever.
Following its poorly executed 2013 launch, the Xbox One evolved into a decent console throughout its seven year lifespan: its iterative successor, the Xbox One X, was (and still is) the most powerful eighth generation console. Under the direction of Xbox head Phil Spencer, features like backwards compatibility and the Xbox Game Pass subscription service helped bolster Microsoft’s console strategy going forward.
The newly released Xbox Series X is the crystallisation of those developments: it’s a powerful modern console with a massive library right out of the gate, and a subscription service that makes games accessible for people unwilling or unable to fork out $100 for a new blockbuster title.
The funny thing is, Xbox Series X’s hardware chops don’t have a lot to show for at launch. With the absence of a heavyduty first-party launch title like, for example, Sony’s Demon’s Souls and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, there’s a sense of quiet about the event (Halo: Infinite was meant to be the jewel in the crown, but it was delayed into 2021). There is not a single game on Xbox Series X that you can’t, albeit in a less impressive manner, also play on a 2013 Xbox One. Launching the console for the first time can be dispiritingly familiar: the UI is the same as the Xbox One. The strongest first impression comes via the NVMe SSD drive, which makes booting the console and handling the UI a breeze.
Microsoft has definitely taken a leaf out of the smartphone playbook: it doesn’t necessarily want you to feel dazzled by a shiny new user experience, it’s just bringing more power to the table. Console launches have always been a clearing of the decks, but with the ascendance of live service games like Destiny 2, and ever-evolving free-to-play games like Fortnite, that routine no longer makes sense. User habits aren’t going to pivot away from these hobby games just because Microsoft or Sony says it’s time, and the Xbox Series X is very much a product of this realisation. Platforms no longer take centre place because games themselves are the platforms, now. Hence Microsoft’s insistence on cross-platform play, hence its courting of Nintendo, and hence its disposing of the concept of first-party console exclusives in favour of shipping on PC too.
The nitty gritty
The monolithic tower (it’s hardly a “box”) houses a custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU boasting 12 teraflops speed, with a custom AMD Zen 2, eight-core CPU running at 3.8GHz. There’s 16GB of RAM inside, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. These are custom components, but for reference, this means the GPU is roughly the equivalent of an RTX 2080, while the CPU is close to a Ryzen 7 3700X.
“With the absence of a heavy-duty first-party launch title like, for example, Sony’s Demon’s Souls and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, there’s a sense of quiet about the event.”
In other words, this is a very powerful console, but if you’re a big spender you’ll be able to build a more powerful PC – that’s not unexpected, that was the norm for eighth generation consoles, too. But consoles aren’t PCs, and the Xbox Series X has a lot going for it in other areas, to the extent that the idea of going back to an Xbox One (or PS4) is tiresome. Xbox’s Quick Resume is the most remarkable quality-of-life improvement: if you’re in the habit of playing more than one game at a time, the Xbox Series X keeps your progress cached. For example: if you’re mid-mission in Watch Dogs Legion, but want to jump back into a race in Forza Horizon 4, you can jump back into that race without closing Watch Dogs Legion and rebooting Forza. This channelhopping feature works for up to five games.
While loading screens haven’t been eliminated entirely, they’re drastically improved. One of the worst offenders for interminable loading times on Xbox One was Forza Horizon 4,
which takes just under two minutes from selecting the game to getting behind the wheel. On Xbox Series X, that’s carved to a minute. Another example: Monster Hunter World
takes just above 1:40 to get into the game on Xbox One X, whereas on the new console it’s just under thirty seconds.
That said, at release one of the next generation’s biggest sales pitches hasn’t proven too impressive. It’s hardly Microsoft’s fault, but the implementation of realtime shadows and reflections in Watch Dogs Legion and Dirt 5
are hardly going to impress anyone but the most attentive. Sadly, in the case of Legion,
there’s no option to toggle these features off in favour of a smoother 60 frames-per second mode. It’ll probably take an impressive first-party implementation – similar to what Sony has with Spider-Man: Miles Morales for PS5 – for the benefits here to show themselves.
Xbox Series X also improves old Xbox One and Xbox 360 games – in some cases, radically. The loading speed of the SSD works across the board, no matter how deep you dive into the Xbox back-catalogue, and all games that we’ve tested with uncapped framerates have been able to hit 60fps, ranging Rise of the Tomb Raider through to Grounded.
This is absolutely fundamental to Microsoft’s Xbox positioning, more so than having even one perfectly exclusive title. This box will not only play all your Xbox One games (and most of your 360 games) but it will make them better in several ways. It’s no exaggeration that within hours of testing the Xbox Series X, the prospect of returning to a HDD-based console was frightening.
The next generation
Given the value proposition, it’s hard to see the Xbox Series X failing, though generation cycles can throw up curveballs: no one expected VR and iterative console roll-outs in the eighth generation. But on Day One, it’s very easy to see the promise of the Xbox Series X. Gaming has never been this accessible and convenient, and if you’re already a PC gamer and bleeding edge tech (or VR) isn’t your bag, the flexibility here, not to mention Microsoft’s pledge to make its first-party titles PC-friendly, is optimum. SHAUN PRESCOTT
A new dawn for a new generation with impressive hardware capabilities, plus the benefits for older games is just wonderful.
“It’s no exaggeration that within hours of testing the Xbox Series X, the prospect of returning to a HDD-based console was frightening.”